The Celtic manager responds to criticism leveled at defender Cameron Carter-Vickers.

BRENDAN RODGERS has jumped to Cameron Carter-Vickers’ defense following the Celtic centre half’s late error in last night’s agonizing Champions League defeat to Lazio.

After a magnificent performance in the Group E clash at Parkhead, the Scottish champions were just seconds away from a draw with their Italian opponents.

Carter-Vickers, who returned from injury to replace Nat Phillips in the second half, was dispossessed in the fifth minute of injury time by replacement Pedro Rodriguez.

In addition, replacement Pedro then headed a Matteo Guendouzi cross past Joe Hart to give the Serie A side a 2-1 win.

But Rodgers, whose side is bottom of their division after two games, has argued that the centre half was not to blame for the heartbreaking defeat.

“It’s a poor goal from our perspective,” he stated. “Obviously, we want to win every game we play.” There was possibly a belief that we had possession of the ball but were out of position. That’s merely the desire to win the game.

“However, it was a really good cross and a fantastic header by Pedro.” But, from our point of view, our positioning alone can invalidate the goal. From our perspective, that was the lone letdown.

“Cam is not to fault. Obviously, they grab the ball from him, but we deal with the cross if we are in a superior position.

“What we learned as a team is that you shouldn’t come out of the space until you have control of the ball and the game.” However, there was a lot of really nice stuff to carry over to the next game.

“I thought we played some really good football at times.” We had possession and were playing through the lines in midfield, getting into nice places, but we didn’t quite get the corresponding outcome.”

Meanwhile, Rodgers, whose squad crushed Maurizio Sarri’s team, has refused to rule out Celtic reaching the knockout stages of the Champions League or the Europa League, despite the fact that they are now four points behind Atletico Madrid and Lazio and three points behind Feyenoord.

“We were under no illusions coming into this competition about where we sat,” he stated. “I stated at the outset that our goal was to qualify for European football, and that is still our ambition and mentality.”

“We’ve shown that we can compete in two games against good teams.” We just need to clean up at one or two points in the game and hope for some good fortune. We will continue to battle in every game to earn that qualification.”

“We’ve been right in both games,” Rodgers continued. We were really competitive for the first hour in Feyenoord, and if we had made better decisions, we could have been in front. ButWe demonstrated our ability to compete.

“Then we were very unfortunate to lose last night.” But in the second half, we showed our worth and produced some excellent football.

“However, it’s a harsh lesson for us to learn.” We’re up against some incredible teams in this competition, but we’re here to compete. Unfortunately, we did not get our due from the game. But we’ll keep battling in every game and look forward to the next one.”